Veteran recalls rough’ parachute jump training

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Apr 25, 2016 at 11:07 AMApr 26, 2016 at 10:59 AM

Historian Joe L. Todd interviewed Aubrey Brock in Joplin, Mo., for the Oklahoma Historical Society. Following is the second installment of Brock’s interview, which began in the April 11 edition of the EE.

Historian Joe L. Todd interviewed Aubrey Brock in Joplin, Mo., for the Oklahoma Historical Society. Following is the second installment of Brock’s interview, which began in the April 11 edition of the EE.

Todd: How long did you work for Boeing?

Brock: About a year.

T: Then what did you do?

B: I went to Kansas City and worked with a carpenter friend of mine and did that the rest of my working life. The last 10 years I went around renovating lease spaces in shopping centers.

T: Who did you work for?

B: Freeman Construction Company out of Kansas City, Kansas.

T: When did you come to Joplin?

B: I retired here from Dallas in 1997. I was doing carpenter work in Dallas. I worked on a 3 story mall in Dallas. That got me started on mall work because it was air conditioned in the summer and warm in the winter.

T: Why did you come to Joplin?

B: Cheap green fees and I had 2 brothers that already retired here.

T: The Joplin tornado. Tell me what happened.

B: My wife’s nephew rescued us and he told us we didn’t want to come outside. We were in the closet when the tornado hit.

T: How much warning did you have?

B: There are always alarms in the spring in tornado alley. I stepped outside and I told my wife I think it is going around. About that time the siren goes off and it is here. I grabbed the dog and we get in the closet and all hell breaks loose. My wife was screaming and I used to ride a motorcycle at breakneck speeds and I was thinking, "Lady Luck stay with me for one more ride". The tree in the front of the house saved us. The tree is over 100 years old and big. It ripped that tree right out of the ground and was the biggest tree on the block. We didn’t have time to do anything except get in the closet. The sirens had gone on but then went off and we were told they had to turn them off to let them cool down. Three walls of our house were destroyed and most everything inside was gone. The whole block was gone and a lady across the street was killed. Everyone else was lucky and every house was gone and our house was the only one that had walls standing because of that tree. My nephew found some timber and made a big cross in front our out house and many people said that was in inspiration.

T: Did you lose everything?

B: Yes because the rain started right after that and filled everything up with water. We just got 16 inches of blown insulation in the attic and that all came down. We were lucky, just over the hill people were killed and over at Dillon’s Grocery people were killed. There was an apartment complex by Dillon’s blown away and killed 40 or 50 people there.

T: If you didn’t have that tree what would have happened?

B: It probably would have taken us away because we didn’t have time to get anywhere but in the closet. Our neighbors had basements and they survived but we didn’t have time to get there. People say a tornado sounds like train but the only think I can say it sounded demonic and I don’t think that sound can be reproduced.

T: What was your address?

B: 2405 Kentucky Avenue. It was by the high school and they had security cameras inside the high school and you could watch the place disintegrate. It was an F-5 tornado and 162 people were killed. Five people were waiting in the emergency room at St. John’s hospital and they were all killed. It sucked a 300 pound man out of his room at the hospital, bed and all and killed him. My wife’s nephew came and we were climbing out of the house and we walked out what used to be a picture window. We walked on debris for 2 blocks to Main Street. There was an ambulance sitting there and we got in it. Here came two guys carrying a man on a stretcher and a man was walking with a broken arm and they got in the ambulance and we took off and the driver was driving around debris. The ambulance had to stop and we got out and went into McDonalds with about 40 other people because a lot of people had nowhere to go. It was 6:00 then and at 9:00 they ran us out because of gas. There were people walking around in the rain and had no place to go. I saw a guy in a car that had come from the north side of town to check on his bank. He was the president of the bank. I flagged him down and asked him if he could take us to my sister’s on the north side of town and he said sure because he lived on the north side. We got a lucky break there and he took us to my sister’s house. When it was all over we moved in this house on St. Charles Street. It took us about a month to find this place.

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